


Children

by hotlinemiamy



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen, Original Character - Freeform, Pregnancy, Swearing, vague Half-Life references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29074551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotlinemiamy/pseuds/hotlinemiamy
Summary: Engineer visits home and watches the sunrise with his sister.
Kudos: 16





	Children

**Author's Note:**

> This fic’s more self-indulgent. Mostly just an aimless conversation, and mostly an excuse to write an OC I’ve had in my head for a while.

Sunrise just barely peeks through the Texas horizon. Dell squints up from the old porch swing, from a dim, flickering lightbulb he worked under for the last hour. He tips his notebook and rests a technical sketch of a new Dispenser component, a hazy idea he’d thought of while half-awake, against his gut.

Ideas came easier here at home, back on the ranch. Dell Conagher thrived on thinking on his feet, but the lack of gunfire and petty arguing solved a lot of creative blocks. All he had to focus on now were the sounds of cows and late-summer cicadas in the distance.

He should probably commit his idea to real blueprint paper, he realizes, but that would involve going out to the barn, into his old man’s workshop, and he’s too bleary-eyed to bother.

The front door creaks open. Dell looks up as a woman in a nightgown steps out. She yawns and ties a loose, lazy knot through a nightgown, enough to get it around her pregnant belly.

“Mornin’.”

Dell’s lips quirks as he slips his pencil behind his ear.

“Awake already?”

Evelyne Freeman, née Conagher, reaches through a frizzy, bed-headed mess of dishwater blonde curls and scratches her scalp. She was a near-spitting image of Mama with Pa’s stature. Meanwhile, Dell looked like Pa, with Mama’s height. Her husband was away for a few months - Air Force business. The Freemans had a home in Austin, close enough to Bee Cave, but Evelyne decided to make a family visit out of it.

“Yeah. Kid’s kickin’ like a son of a bitch.”

Dell shifts to give his sister room on the other half of the swing. Evelyne looks to his notebook, then a beer on the arm of the porch railing, and snorts quietly.

“You’re way too damn much like Daddy, you know that?”

Dell only answers with a knowing smile. Grinning back, Evelyne carefully settles next to him with a great, big sigh. He shifts his legs to slowly rock the swing.

Part of him thinks back to years ago, back on the same swing. He was nine years old, holding his newborn baby sister as Mama rocked them both. One of their few peaceful moments back then. After that, they got along like water and oil for a good while. Evelyne was his near opposite – outspoken, hotheaded, taller, and with a hell of a lot more hair. An outright firecracker. Dell was too – had plenty of his own rowdiness – but he was quieter through most of his childhood, and it took him longer to come into his own.

Back the present, Evelyn eyes the beer sitting on the arm of the railing.

“God, I’d kill for one of those.”

Dell reaches for the can and takes a _long_ pull. Evelyne blinks. Her brows narrow, well-goddamn-aware of what he was doing. He grins behind the can.

“Bet I could outdrink you under the table again.”

“Bet y’could.”

“Bet I can do it the second after the kid gets off my tit.”

Dell snorts a gulpful of stale beer up his nose.

“ _Jesus_ , Evie.”

“What? I still could.” Evelyne grins. She’s well-goddamn-aware of what she’s doing too. She’s wasn't wrong either. She out-drank him plenty of times before. “Baby just takes the fun out of it.”

Like she minds. For all the complaining, she looked forward to being a mom. Evelyne Freeman, née Conagher: equine trainer, rodeo champion, bar fighter, hell raiser – and now loving mother. Come a couple months, that kid was going to raise hell too.

Dell coughs, shakes his head, and looks to his notebook. He stakes the pencil out from his ear and gets back to sketching.

“You still thinkin’ on names?”

Evelyne stares out into the dawn. She goes quiet for a moment.

"Yeah. Got some ideas now, though. Maybe… Priscilla, like Mamaw.”

Dell nods with quiet approval. Priscilla ‘Prissy’ Conagher was another force to be reckoned with. Dell and Evelyne never met their great-grandmother, but were often told stories about the elaborate, cruel-and-unusual inventions she’d set around her farm just to keep people off her property.

“Gordon, too.”

“Gordon?” Dell says with incredulity, looking up. “Gordon Freeman?”

“I dunno. Joey mentioned it.”

“Joey’s got shit taste in names,” Dell says, ‘Joey’ coming out of his mouth with barely contained repugnance. Why Evie married that meathead was still beyond him.

“Okay, _Dell._ ” Evelyne snorts. “Didn’t realize you were the world’s dullest expert on baby names. No wonder your machines got borin’ names.”

He quirks a brow. She quirks a brow back. A moment passes, then until Dell backs down with a sigh, shaking his head and looking back at his sketch. He knew better to argue with a woman six months pregnant who knew how to throw hands.

“Gordon’s decent.”

“Thought you’d come my way.”

Satisfied, Evelyne settles her arms over her stomach and leans back against the bench backing. Dell finishes the final touches on his sketch. For a bit, they sit in comfortable silence.

Finally—

“You goin’ back to New Mexico soon?”

Dell hums. “I’ll try stick around. You’re gonna pop soon, anyhow.”

“Shit, bun’s in the oven for another few months, Dell. I ain’t worried. You won’t miss out on the uncle thing,” Evelyne says. Then, after a small, hesitant pause: “What do you gotta do out there, anyway?”

“Told you, Evie,” Dell says in a flat, no-nonsense tone he’s used before. “Defense contractin’. They use my machines, I keep ‘em working. I can’t talk about it much.”

“ _God_.” Evelyne tilts her head back in the most dramatic of pouts. “You ARE like Daddy.”

Dell looks up with small, sideways smirk, but adds nothing else. Evelyne was tough, practical. Blood didn’t scare her. Even then, though, she didn’t need to know about the bloodshed back in New Mexico. Even with Gray Mann’s army turning fights more metal than flesh – things still got bad sometimes.

Mama worried enough between him and Daddy.


End file.
